People's Republic of Gaming —

China’s game console ban may soon come to an end

Game consoles have been banned in China since 2000, due to what Chinese cultural ministers called "potential harm to the physical and mental development of the young." But an unnamed source from the ministry of culture has now told China Daily they are reviewing that policy, potentially opening the Chinese market to game consoles officially.

"Since the ban was issued by seven ministries more than a decade ago, we will need approval from all parties to lift it," the source said.

The stock market reacted quickly to the mere hint that console makers might get access to China's more than one billion consumers. Nintendo is up about four percent and Sony Corporation has seen a nine percent gain on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Xbox maker Microsoft is largely unchanged in NASDAQ trading.

Despite the ban, many retailers and wholesalers have illegally imported legitimate consoles into China over the past decade. Console makers have found loopholes to get their products into the Chinese market as well. In 2003, Nintendo went through a local partner company to release the iQue, a controller-shaped device that plugged directly into the TV and played several downloadable Nintendo 64 games. The Nintendo DS has been available in the country as the "iQue DS" since 2005.

Sony released the PlayStation 2 in China in 2004 (after convincing the Japanese government that it wouldn't be used for missile guidance systems) but quickly withdrew the system after widespread piracy prevented the profit-generating game sales. Last November, Sony obtained a "Compulsory Certificate" to sell the PS3 in China through 2016, another hint that the anti-console policy may be weakening. Microsoft sells the Kinect in China, but mainly for use in scientific and medical research, not as a game controller.

The ban on game consoles hasn't dampened China's enthusiasm for gaming on PCs, especially in massively multiplayer online games. There are an estimated 100 million Chinese gamers online. In fact, as of late 2011, the 3.2 million Chinese World of Warcraft players outnumbered the roughly 3 million playing in North America.

But this trend also hasn't gone unnoticed by Chinese authorities. Since 2007, Chinese players have had to use a real name and ID number to sign into online games, and game makers have to limit the number of consecutive hours a player can play to combat fears of addiction. In 2008, the government-controlled Beijing Timesreported that four million Chinese gamers had an "unhealthy" addiction to online titles.

If and when the Chinese government officially welcomes all game consoles, hardware and software makers will still face unique challenges in the market. Besides the widespread piracy that brought down the PS2 in China, game makers will also have to contend with the kind of bootleg games that have traded on the good name of well-known brands since the NES days. China also routinely places restrictions on the influence of foreign companies and international game servers, though Microsoft skirted these rules by launching a Chinese-language Xbox Live landing page in August.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

15 Reader Comments

It should be a great opportunity when the market opens up. The fact that most content / games will be downloadable soon should combat the rampant piracy issues in China. I leave it up to someone else to say something witty.

I would be interested in hearing about what game development would look like for the Chinese market. I understand MMOs dominate the PC space, but would the Chinese market adopt military shooters (if such a thing were theoretically allowed)? Would platformers, puzzle games, etc be the most popular games?

Potentially this may help create new style's of games as developers try to cater to the market but have to stay within China's guidelines. Will this more likely result in games that are made only for China or modified to appease the Chinese government? Sure.

But I can't help but hope the introduction of a new gaming console population with different values, restrictions, and ideas of fun will do for game development overall. Something might bleed over.

Unless what bleeds over is more intrusive DRM as China figures out how to pirate all the things.

It should be a great opportunity when the market opens up. The fact that most content / games will be downloadable soon should combat the rampant piracy issues in China. I leave it up to someone else to say something witty.

How does downloadable fix the piracy issue? The only way that might work is if it is download only, and I don't see that happening for quite some time.

I grew up playing video games since the SNES/N64 era, now I'm studying engineering and I now rarely play games because of lack of time and interest unless GT6 or MGS comes out and if next generation consoles are worth purchasing. If not then it's all PC flight simulators and occasional shoot em up games if I have NOTHING to do. Some may inhibit addiction and loss of outside social life but nonetheless, I call China bs.

It should be a great opportunity when the market opens up. The fact that most content / games will be downloadable soon should combat the rampant piracy issues in China. I leave it up to someone else to say something witty.

How does downloadable fix the piracy issue? The only way that might work is if it is download only, and I don't see that happening for quite some time.

Download only, yes. The technology will have to keep pace. How that is to happen is only a guess.

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Sorry I was under the impression that those style of games weren't technically allowed and had to have less than legitimate means to play?

Nah, I bought licensed copies of MoH as a kid and loved them. CS:source (or a somewhat modded version of it) is run by Tencent, one of China's biggest providers. I think they just licensed LOL too.

China has a far tougher stance on guns than the U.S, owning one is enough for a death penalty, which is why the officials aren't concerned about FPS games.

Ironicending wrote:

Otherwise what was China's "ban of concern/think of the children about"? Could just have been the addiction worry.

I was thinking console gaming might show us what the Chinese market demands outside of MMOs, which really feels like a PC thing.

The addiction is certainly one issue. The other is promoting local platforms. Lenovo has (once upon a time) tried to push a Playstation-styled platform. Other companies have also done similar things without any success.

There is a huge number of Dota and LOL players in China (TPS?), as well as a thriving CrossFire community. The latter is basically Counter-Strike where you pay money for good guns.

Just when you thought a generation of Chinese kids would grow up and rule the world, their government saves us all. Who's left for them to outsource engineering of their next generation fighters and subs too?